John Oelke

​John Oelke began his broadcast engineering career here when was hired as vacation relief in 1961 by the St. Louis Pulitzer broadcast operation.

​In 1974 he was promoted to manager of engineering for KSD Radio. When the station was sold two years later, he took on additional duties for sister station KSD-FM, essentially becoming the company’s chief engineer. He built new studios, then repeated that task for WRTH.

​In 1984 Oelke became KSHE’s chief engineer, where he designed and built the station’s studios, transmitting facility and offices.

​After his “retirement” in 1996, John Oelke became site manager for St. Louis’ community broadcasting tower, which was shared by 10 FM stations, a digital TV antenna and several low-power TV stations.